Super duper
You guys. Did you know you could watch Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman on Netflix on demand? Well you can! All four delightfully campy season of it. So obviously, I’ve been doing nothing but watching it. My friend Megan and I were obsessed with this show, and Dean Cain, when we were in junior high, and even though it is the apex of ridiculousness, I’m LOVING IT.
But. I will say. This show has not aged well. AT ALL. I’d forgotten how long ago it was on television. It first aired in 1993, which is the same year both Friends and The X-Files did, but for some reason those shows, though obviously dated in so many ways, stand the test of time better? I mean, The X-Files is so frakking good that it doesn’t really matter-it could’ve been made anytime and it would still be relevant. And Friends went on so long, the later years are relatively current. But Lois & Clark…woof.
I think it’s probably the special effects. Because of the whole Superman element, there’s a lot of green screening in an time where green screening wasn’t particularly well done. The flying scenes are LAUGHABLE and don’t seem to conform to the laws of, oh, physics. Not to mention, when Lois ruins her shoes while stopping a runaway truck in “Ultra Woman” (where Shelly Long accidentally transfers Clark’s powers to Lois by shooting him with a red kryptonite laser…don’t ask), she laments, “These shoes cost $75!” The post-Sex and the City era it is not.
No cell phones. Beepers. Beepers! And those big portable phones with the retractible antennas. I know I shouldn’t make fun; it’s not like iPhones won’t look like the most ancient technology imaginable in 10 years or whatever. But that, combined with the over-the-top-ness (mustache twirling villains who attempt head transplants, plastic surgery so perfect that it’s possible to create an actual double of Lois, etc.) makes it a cheese-tastic throwback. I mean, in the episode I’m watching now, the villains are freeze-dried hot Nazis who’ve been resurrected from a deep cryo-sleep and are posing as celebrities in order to resurrect the Third Reich. Nazis! Can you imagine? I don’t think we’ve seen hide or hair of a fictional Nazi threat on TV since 9/11.
But you know why I keep watching it? Lois and Clark. Their relationship (I’ve effectively skipped the first and second seasons, because all that tension is just boring to me, and Lex Luthor…barf) is really sweet and funny and remarkably realistic in the sense that they are constantly fumbling all over the place, unable to express themselves and afraid to, constantly second guessing their own behavior and trying to do the right thing but unsure of what the right thing might be. I don’t think of either Teri Hatcher or Dean Cain as remarkable actors, per se, but they make it utterly believable, and compulsively watchable. I love the sweet naivete of the show. You could never have a show like this on a network today, although I guess Glee comes pretty close in that sense. But I mean, I just finished watching an episode where a woman claims to have had Superman’s love child-and she’s lying! Because Clark is a stand up guy who would never sleep with a woman who wasn’t Lois Lane, even before he met her! It’s awesome. A perfect antidote to our ironic, jaded era.
Originally published at AnnaJarzab.com